"What have you been doing since you left Cambridge Circus?" I demanded.
My plan looked like working. He confronted me.
"And what's that got to do with you?" he said.
"I think I could tell you what you've been doing. Naturally I shan't."
He looked coldly down on me. "No," he said slowly, "I don't think I would if I were you.... And if you've seen me, I've seen you too," he added menacingly.
"Before to-night?"
"Yes, before to-night."
"Where was that?"
There was contempt in his tone. "Oh, nowhere discreditable. You're too magnificently steady for that."
I cannot tell you why we were standing together in one corner of the room, body to body, with all the rest of the room empty. I only know that I was not afraid of him, and that my intention to provoke him was now fixed. Quite apart from those inhuman figures and graphs, this book that he was contemplating approached—I will risk saying it—the impious.